Social housing stock and rents

An annual report which includes information on the number of dwellings, bedsits and bedspaces owned or partly owned by local authorities and registered social landlords

Key points

There continues to be a very slight increase in socially rented housing stock, with 226,221 social landlord dwellings, bedsits and bedspaces (i.e. housing units) in Wales at 31 March 2014. Since March 2013, socially rented housing stock has increased by 0.2 per cent, resulting in an average of 17 social rented housing units being available per 100 households across Wales.

At 31 March 2014, RSLs continued to own 61 per cent of all social rented housing stock and owned all social housing in half of the authorities across Wales.

Since 2003-04 rent levels of self-contained social rented housing has increased across all property types. Over the last year, the highest percentage increase in weekly rents has been for RSL self-contained general needs properties.

Local authority rent levels for self-contained general needs housing remained below those of the RSLs, though the gap increased slightly with the overall average rent of £76.70 per week for 2014-15, compared to £79.69 for RSLs.